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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26779246">Never is a lie</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/softmoonlight/pseuds/softmoonlight'>softmoonlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mustafar, Post-Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Torture, Very minor Legends references, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:54:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,625</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26779246</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/softmoonlight/pseuds/softmoonlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>“Let me guess,” she sighed, leaning her head back into the harsh metal and shutting her eyes. “This is Mustafar.”<br/><br/><i>The place where Jedi go to die. Because Anakin kills them.</i><br/></p>
</blockquote><br/>Ahsoka never truly expected to survive Malachor, but she did—at the cost of ending up at Vader's mercy. Not that she had any choice in the matter.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ahsoka Tano &amp; Darth Vader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober, Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Never is a lie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The prompt choices: <b>waking up restrained</b> | shackled | hanging</p><p>A bit late because I had trouble with the ending. I’ll probably go back and iron out the kinks when I have time.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Something sharp prodded her mind, and Ahsoka jolted awake to the irritatingly familiar sensation of binders around her wrists. Her entire body ached, but she couldn’t afford to think about it too much. Her eyes darted around, sizing up her surroundings.</p><p>The room was large and empty, its dark tones transforming the walls into shadows that made the space seem even larger.  Far away in front of her, a dim light shone by what must have been the door.</p><p>Then there was the matter of her restraints.</p><p>Clearly, it was some sort of torture device. Nothing else could be so unwieldy. Metal clamps bound Ahsoka’s wrists and ankles to a flat, hard plank of a surface which itself tilted backward slightly. On either side of her head, large panels lined with sharp, thin spikes flared out, scarcely centimeters away from piercing her skin. The entire thing hummed with a low electric current, especially concentrated around the binders and near her head. The noise and sensation felt distractingly prickly enough that Ahsoka knew immediately that starting and maintaining a connection to the Force would prove impossible.</p><p>Dread settled in her chest. This had been designed for Force-sensitives.</p><p>Which meant…</p><p>Everything rushed back to her in seconds, compounding her headache. She saw herself and Kanan in their first contact with the TIE pilot. Crying while watching the training holocron. Saying goodbye to Rex, Hera, Sabine, and Zeb, on her side knowing it would be a one-way trip but on theirs probably hoping she would come back. Kanan, wearing a mask over his eyes and bleeding pain into the Force. Pushing Ezra away to save his life, hearing him cry out after her desperately and being struck by the stupid, <em>stupid</em> regret that she would never have her own padawan—and then wonderment at the fact that she realized she wanted a padawan at all. Crossing her blades behind her back to stop her Sith Lord former master literally stabbing her in the back.</p><p>The last memory before ending up here was of her driving her lightsabers into the floor, burying them both in the rubble. He intended to kill her anyway, so why not take him with her?</p><p>She should have known even an entire crashing on top of him wouldn’t kill the bastard. Somehow, he’d evidently stopped it from killing her, too.</p><p>As though summoned, only then did Ahsoka hear the hissing of regulated breathing somewhere behind her. Her blood ran cold.</p><p>Vader.</p><p>
  <em>Anakin.</em>
</p><p>Vader was Anakin was Vader, and she’d known that <em>in theory</em> for months, but now she could no longer pretend. She’d seen his face under the mask—aged, horribly scarred, inhumanly pallid, with one visible Sith-yellow eye, but still undeniably <em>his</em> face.</p><p>And he’d responded to his name.</p><p>Now she was captured, and there was no way to ignore him. He would torture and kill her just as he’d done with the rest.</p><p>“Let me guess,” she sighed, leaning her head back into the harsh metal and shutting her eyes. “This is Mustafar.”</p><p><em>The place where Jedi go to die. </em><em>Because Anakin kills them</em>.</p><p>For a moment, he did not reply, just continued that <em>horrible </em>breathing. Then a chill ran up her spine as the monster who used to be her master entered her view, circling around her...chair and beginning to pace in front of her.</p><p>On the third pace back, the helmet finally tilted, regarding her with an unnerving gaze; she stared back coolly, unblinking. “An astute observation, apprentice.”</p><p>“Is that your bizarre way of saying <em>yes?”</em></p><p>Anakin ignored her, of course. Ahsoka gritted her teeth.</p><p>She tried again. “Why am I here, Anakin?”</p><p>He stopped pacing immediately, spinning on his heel with a whirl of his cape to loom directly in front of her. She did not flinch. “<em>Anakin Skywalker is dead</em>,” he hissed, predictably.</p><p>With his mask and vocoder restored, Ahsoka could almost let herself believe that. The basso was as far away as possible from the teasing, sometimes whiny voice she once knew so well. But she’d heard his true voice, and the fact that he was now in some surreal denial of his own <em>name</em> to cope with Falling was so quintessentially Anakin that she wanted to cry.</p><p>She still had things to say to him, and she wasn’t going to survive this, so she decided not to hold back. “You answered to that name when I called you.”</p><p>Anakin made a strange snarling noise and whirled away from her. His hand clenched into a half-formed fist, palm up. She recognized the movement: he was fumbling for an appropriately biting retort.</p><p>“I did not,” he managed stiffly, after a long, telling pause. “I said your name.”</p><p>She groaned, possessed with the same exasperation as her sixteen-year-old self. There was no way this was actually happening. Had he dragged her from the wreckage just to prove to her he somehow wasn’t Anakin? If anything, everything he did further convinced her he <em>was</em> Anakin<em>.</em></p><p>“What do you want.”</p><p>“I already told you.”</p><p>Ahsoka searched her memories for what that could be, shaking her head vehemently when she realized. “No.”</p><p>It was like he didn’t hear her. “Cooperate, and you will be treated fairly.”</p><p>“<em>Fairly?</em> Do you even know the meaning of the word? You think Palpatine will just let me live if I sell out? You’re delusional.”</p><p>“And <em>you</em> are a liar. You know the location of the remaining Jedi, and I will have that knowledge too.”</p><p>She sneered. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”</p><p>Technically, she <em>did</em> know where Kanan and Ezra were, having picked them up from Atollon herself. However, the fact that they thought of the <em>Ghost</em> as their true home, and she didn’t know where <em>it</em> was, managed to be enough for the denial to not feel like a lie in the Force. She learned the technique from Master Obi-Wan, and as Fulcrum she’d grown well accustomed to making truth relative.</p><p>“You will,” he hissed. “Join me and Fall, or be destroyed.”</p><p>Ahsoka jutted out her chin defiantly. “That’s the easiest choice I’ve ever had to make. Save your proselytizing, I’m not interested in joining a regime that ruined my life and killed all my friends and family.”</p><p>“Everyone gives in eventually,” Anakin said, and the unnerving certainty in the dark promise made her skin crawl. “It is just a matter of how much pain you endure first.”</p><p>“Torture?” she snorted, rattled her restraints loudly. “I’ve been tortured before, and I’ve never talked. Do your worst, Anakin.”</p><p>“Do <em>not</em> call me that.”</p><p>“I’ll call you whatever I want to. I think I’ve earned it.” She tilted her head, a malicious smile curling her lips. “How’s ‘traitor to everyone he ever loved’ sound? It’s a bit wordy, but it’s accurate.”</p><p>The finger was back to nearly jab her eye out. “I did <em>not</em> betray anyone. <em>They</em> betrayed <em>me</em>.”</p><p>Ahsoka stared, mouth falling open in disbelief. “Force, I think you actually believe that.”</p><p>“It is the truth.”</p><p>“Sure it is. The person who helped murder the entire Jedi Order isn’t the one at fault here.”</p><p>“The<em> Jedi Order</em>”—she shivered; how was it possible to pack so much hatred into two words?—“and all who supported them brought that fate upon themselves.”</p><p>Her anger at that sentence flared up almost to match his, and the part of her that was still an operative seized on the part she knew was his weak spot. Her voice shook with rage. “They <em>deserved</em> it? The <em>chipped</em> <em>clones</em> deserved it?”</p><p>He tilted his head, considering, and she wondered whether he answered because he needed to justify it to himself or because he needed <em>her </em>to believe it. “The clones were enslaved by the Republic, and were born as hardly more than flesh droids with base impulses. They were never meant to last longer than the war, and those that did served the Empire faithfully.”</p><p>Ahsoka was going to be sick, but she pressed on, needing to hear him say it. Needing to know how he could possibly hope to explain himself. “The <em>children </em>in the Temple deserved it?”</p><p>“Poisoned by dogma.”</p><p>“The <em>babies?"</em></p><p>“Presented future threats.”</p><p>“The people who weren’t even in the Order anymore? Like me?”</p><p>“<em>Enough</em>.” There was so much anger in that single word that she winced and shut her eyes to ward off the rush of concentrated pain that almost knocked her out.</p><p>Ah. So he would admit to slavery and child-killing, but couldn’t face the fact that his actions had affected her. Good to know.</p><p>“I will not ask nicely again. Where are they, Ahsoka?”</p><p>“Who?”</p><p>“Any of them. Kanan Jarrus. Ezra Bridger. Cal Kestis. Shaak Ti. Quinlan Vos. Galen Marek.” He hesitated for one of his infuriatingly long pauses. “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”</p><p>She stared at him, suddenly unable to breathe. If she could have, she would have grabbed him and shaken him. “Obi-Wan’s <em>alive?”</em></p><p>“Don’t pretend you didn’t know,” Anakin snapped, his pacing suddenly turning erratic and even more agitated than before.</p><p>“I didn’t…” she whispered, numb with shock. Her eyes found the floor.</p><p>She felt the weight of his attention fall on her. “You truly didn’t know? Obi-Wan has evaded capture for sixteen years.”</p><p>Ahsoka barely heard him.</p><p>Obi-Wan was <em>alive</em>. Her grandmaster was alive.</p><p>“You’re both alive,” she breathed. “All this time, you’ve both been alive.”</p><p>Maybe in some other universe, they were all happy together…</p><p><em>Compartmentalize,</em> she ordered herself, and tried her best to shove the novelty away. So Obi-Wan was alive. How did she adapt that new information to her advantage?</p><p>“He could have died by now,” she tried, realizing as she said it that she genuinely feared that was had happened to him. “Maybe you can’t find him because of that.”</p><p>“We both know that he has not.” Resentment, poisonous and so deep it made her wonder what happened between them, but also unshakable certainty. He and Obi-Wan knew each other better than she’d known either of them.</p><p>No, Anakin was right. Obi-Wan was too intelligent and conniving for that, and he’d survived plenty of impossible situations. There was simply no way he’d accidentally get himself killed as a—she frowned and did the math quickly—fifty-four-year-old.</p><p>And he now was in sickening danger from his own former padawan.</p><p>“Maybe so. But I don’t know where he is. I don’t even know where Kanan and Ezra are, and like I said, I wouldn’t tell you even if I did.”</p><p>He stepped closer to the machine, hand raising toward some panel on the side. The soulless, skeletal mask stared up at her. “I doubt that. You are a high-ranking Rebel intelligence agent. Even if you do not realize it, something you know will lead me to the others.”</p><p>Ahsoka blinked rapidly. That was...disturbingly possible.</p><p>The fact that Anakin put it together was a cold, startling reminder that he was a skilled strategist, and had been perfecting it this entire time, precision like a scalpel rather than an explosive. He was more dangerous than she’d ever guessed.</p><p>She had to escape this place.</p><p><em>I won’t leave you</em>, she said on Malachor, and she’d meant it then. She’d intended to mean it here, too, out of some misplaced need to draw Anakin out of Vader piece by piece.</p><p>But it was no longer just about her and Anakin. People’s lives were already at stake, let alone the potential threat to the surviving Jedi might also somehow be within her mind, as he’d pointed out himself. Who knew what Vader would to do Bail, Cassian, Kallus, Saw…?</p><p>Force forbid he ever find Obi-Wan.</p><p>Ahsoka was so caught up in her racing thoughts that she didn’t even notice that he pressed some button. Instantly, the shackles hummed louder, brightened, and sent an electric shock through her body.</p><p>When it ended, tears streamed down her cheeks, and her arms and legs vibrated with aftershocks. She knew she could endure more, but at the moment her brain couldn’t cope with who was doing this to her. She wanted him to leave her alone.</p><p>“‘<em>I’ll never let </em><em>anyone</em><em> hurt you, Ahsoka</em><em>,’”</em> she spat before he could speak, hating how her voice broke. “That’s what you said to me once.” Her breathing had grown shallower, but she forced herself to say the last part. “You want to know something, Anakin? At the end of it all, you’re the <em>only</em> one who’s consistently hurt me. So…go ahead. I know…I know who the real liar is here.”</p><p>Anakin staggered back as though she’d stabbed him. “I...” he said, and that hesitancy was the most like his old self he’d sounded yet.</p><p>The fact that he did, actually, feel guilt, and<em> chose</em> to do this to her somehow hurt even worse than it would have had he been just a soulless shell.</p><p>Ahsoka couldn’t bear it anymore. She turned away and set her jaw, refusing to look at him.</p><p>He fidgeted at the controls, clearly debating whether he would let her insolence stand. The respirator grated on her nerves, and she wanted nothing more than to claw at it until it <em>shut up </em>and stop reminding her Anakin had turned into <em>this</em>.</p><p>Without another word, he turned and stalked out of the room.</p><p>He’d be back, but he had to collect himself first. She’d won this round.</p><p>She shut her eyes, let the remaining tears fall, and breathed deeply. It didn’t work to calm her down, not when all she could think about was that she wished he’d just killed her.</p><p>An unknown time later, something occurred to her. On Malachor, they killed the last of the Inquisitors. Apart from some stray staff, Anakin was alone here. He was certainly the only Force-sensitive besides her.</p><p>That’s why he had to torture her personally, when he probably would have delegated otherwise to avoid the guilt. Nobody else was left to do it.</p><p>And Anakin was notorious for his long, brutal campaigns all over the galaxy. With Palpatine holding his leash, he never stayed on Mustafar for very long.</p><p>Eventually, he would leave. As long as she could overpower her restraints in whatever cell she was eventually placed in, there would be no Inquisitors to stop her even in her weakened state. The others could be easily dealt with. And this was Anakin’s lair; she was suddenly certain there was more than one ship onplanet.</p><p>She could get out.</p><p>Ahsoka grinned hysterically. Even after all this time, Anakin was still helping her. Not that he knew or wanted to be.</p><p>The names of the known surviving Jedi came back to her. She turned them over in her mind, mouthing the sounds with small wonder. This was definitely not the reaction Anakin intended for her to have, but she would take the victories where she could. In his power play, he’d unwittingly revealed some of the most important people in the galaxy. Now that there was an organized Rebellion, gathering them wouldn’t make them sitting ducks as much as it would have before. She could afford to try it.</p><p>If she could find them, they might actually stand a chance.</p><p>He’d just given her one of the greatest gifts she’d had in forever.</p><p>Knowledge that not only was she not alone, but that there were still a few of them out there. It was pitiable that their once flourishing Order was down to so few people, but this was more than she could’ve ever hoped for.</p><p>It wasn’t just her. It wasn’t just her and Kanan and Ezra anymore. There were others.</p><p>And Obi-Wan was one of them.</p><p>She had names. Nothing else in an entire galaxy to track them down, but it was more than she’d had in years.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>-Maybe too upbeat at the end to be whump, but I'm incapable of torture porn just for the sake of it lmao. I need some resolution.</p><p>-The torture device is the one used on Kanan in Rebels and Trilla and Cere in Jedi: Fallen Order.</p><p>-Was a bit unsure about having her refer to him as Anakin the whole time, but the significance of Twilight of the Apprentice is that she knows for sure he's Anakin, so I don't think she'd allow any sort of denial about it. She's actively dealing with the fact that Vader is Anakin.</p><p>-I do think "I won't leave you. Not this time" is heartbreaking, but realistically, I think it shows Ahsoka blames herself for what happened more than she should, and was not actually healthy to offer.</p><p>-Obviously she gets out. Idc how unrealistic it is.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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